News Diary: Will Race Debate Last Long?

Barack Obama’s speech about racial division on Tuesday captured extensive play across all media platforms yesterday. The speech captured front-page play in many of this morning’s newspapers, preceded by lots of cable airtime and debate on internet sites. I’ve long suggested that race is the defining issue in this country. And it always will be. So as a journalist and citizen, I welcome this debate, difficult and messy as it might be. Only time will tell if his speech helps sustain the discussion across the country, or whether the collective attention span of an easily distracted electorate will quickly skip to the next message of the day/Gary Graham, News Diary. More here

Question: Do you think race will remain a dominant issue in the campaign, or is this week’s focus just a short-lived phenomenon?